The All Mother and All Father

“Mother of all, consort to the sun.”

Ok next poll that fandom seems to have different interpretations of:

Felassan’s death.

Some see it as a cold, deliberate execution for disobeying orders, while others interpret it as an emotional reaction, that Solas was still reeling from shock of the Veil and all that happened.

But a key point is also timing. The Masked Empire takes place about one year before the Inquisition is formed, and Solas himself says he woke from uthenera roughly a year before joining the Inquisition. That places Felassan’s death at or near the moment of Solas’ awakening. Some think Solas killed Felassan while he was still in uthenera and close to waking, while others think he killed Felassan once he was physically awake.

I did my best to capture the various interpretations.

Dozer “Rook” Thorne trying to impress Seathre ’The Herald of Andraste’, ‘The Woman Who Blazes With Fire’, 'First-Thaw’, 'The Inquisitor’ Lavellan with his shiny new dagger.

Forgive him Dorian, he’s just a bulldog puppy who likes his new toy and likes Saethre’s scent.

“Solas is sentimental. He could burn the world down, and the thing that would make him cry is a single flower with blackened petals.”

I interpret the flower as carrying two meanings. It represents the world before the Veil: Solas’ world, something living and beautiful that was burned and left damaged by him. But it also represents Thedas as it exists now - a world he never meant to connect to, yet has come to see as made up of real people and real beauty. The petals are blackened, but not gone. Both worlds now exist for him, and both are harmed, because he can’t save one without destroying the other.

Solas is trapped in a no-win situation for himself. If he tears down the Veil, he destroys the world as it exists now, including the people he has come to see as real and meaningful. If he doesn’t tear it down, then the world he lost, the people he tried to save, remains destroyed forever because of him. There’s no outcome where both worlds survive. The flower, to me, represents that impossible bind.

Varric’s describing something tragic about Solas’ story. Solas doesn’t like unnecessary suffering, and he does value life - something shown repeatedly across Inquisition, Trespasser, and Veilguard. The flower makes him weep because its blackened petals represent the world he destroyed. But even if he succeeded in tearing down the Veil, that same flower would still undo him, because it would also represent the world he destroyed in order to restore his own.

In either outcome, the flower confronts him with the same truth: for Solas, restoration will always come at the cost of another world and he will always be a destroyer of worlds. That’s why he has to compartmentalize - it’s the only way he can keep moving forward.